Searchers find bodies of Arkansas man, infant son

Associated Press

DANVILLE, Ark. (AP) — A four-day search for an Arkansas man and his 10-month-old son came to a grim end Tuesday as authorities discovered their bodies in a remote area of the Ouachita Mountains, authorities said Tuesday.

Brooke Floyd, who was the wife of Brian Floyd and mother of Harper Floyd, remained in jail Tuesday on a preliminary charge of endangering the welfare of a minor. She was seen with her husband and son on Friday morning, hours before she was found wandering alone on a remote road in the area, which is about 80 miles west of Little Rock.

At the time, she looked "cut up and scarred as if she had been in a wooded area," Yell County Sheriff Bill Gilkey told the Southwest Times Record.

He said Brooke Floyd "spoke of a separation Friday night" and listed her marital status as "single" on the police report.

"Investigators are still trying to get to the bottom of what caused the separation," Gilkey added.

Brooke Floyd didn't initially cooperate with the search effort and was arrested over the weekend on the child endangerment complaint, but she later led authorities to the family's truck, which was towed from the area Tuesday.

Gilkey said searchers found Harper's body in the mountainous terrain at around 1:30 p.m. and found his father's about an hour later. The bodies were taken to the state crime lab for autopsies.

"It's not the outcome we certainly had hoped for and our prayers and thoughts go out to the families involved," Gilkey said at a news conference at the remote site.

Gilkey said investigators don't know yet whether they consider Brooke Floyd a suspect or a victim. Nobody responded to a message seeking comment left Tuesday at a number listed as hers.

The sheriff told The Associated Press late Tuesday that investigators were meeting with county prosecutors to go over the case, and said the review could take several days. Gilkey did not say whether the deaths were the result of homicide or accident.

"Right now, it's still the same; we're still in meetings, going back over everything that's happened since 1:30 p.m. last Friday," Gilkey told the AP by phone.

The Floyds, who lived in Greenwood, were seen together in a green pickup truck in Mansfield on Thursday evening and again the next morning in Yell County, between Moore's Chapel Cemetery and Lick Creek Recreation Area.